


Bathwater

by the-canary (siruru)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Hospitalization, Possibly Unrequited Love, Time Skips, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22161694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siruru/pseuds/the-canary
Summary: Bucky Barnes has had a museum of lovers for as long as you have known him. It’s that and your own cynicism that makes you doubt that this man could actually be your soulmate.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Comments: 7
Kudos: 163





	Bathwater

**Author's Note:**

> happy new year! this is my first story of 2020, thanks to binging on no douvbt over the holidays. this is for @bucky-smiles secret santa for @sagittree. special thanks to @softhairbarnes for helping with the ending ;A; 
> 
> Here is the [reasoning](https://the-canary.tumblr.com/post/190117183846/how-did-you-choose-the-title-bathwater-but-i) for calling it "bathwater" as well.

There’s a **pop** in the back of your head, but you just think its your ears over the loud music and yelling of frat boys. Nat laughs at the momentary discomfort on your face, before shaking her head. You bit back your remark, because you had promised to come with her if she had helped you with your paper. **  
**

One favor for another. That’s when all your thoughts stops at the sound of an all-too familiar voice.

“Chug another one, Barnes!” 

The commotion causes you to look up, as you see a boy drinking like he wasn’t going to live to the next day. People start chanting, as you just shake your head – once again unsure of what you were doing here in the first place. 

You hear Natasha laugh next to you. The young man manages to complete the whole thing as he yells at the crowd after he is done.

_Tall, dark-haired, and blue-eyed – the definition of fuck boy in your book._

_Natasha, in the years to come, would laugh and say that is the definition of your type._

* * *

The _pop_ comes back at times. It shatters your eardrums and leaves you with a headache for the rest of the day, though the times it does are few and far between. It could mean several things, but the most obvious is the one that you choose to ignore – because you of all people don’t believe in those aged stories of maybe, potentially finding the one. **  
**

On the other hand, you end up meeting Natasha’s latest conquest after another visit to the college's medical office. He’s standing in the middle of your really small and shitty-looking kitchen without a shirt, messy brown hair and and easy smile on his lips.

_Pop!_

You feel the headache come back at the sight of Barnes (you don’t know his first name), as you rub your shoulders back. You can’t tell that his smile drops at the sight of you. However, you don’t say anything as you simply groan, rub the back of your head, and walk past him without a word exchanged between the two of you.

You take a Benadryl and pass out for the rest of the day, not really caring if Barnes or Natasha are in the apartment.

* * *

You think about it once, maybe even twice after you see the dark-haired man moving about in your apartment. He isn’t _with_ Natasha anymore, but that causal relationship had turned into an even stronger friendship. Though to you, it just meant that you spent less time in your apartment when he was there and more time in the library. **  
**

The subtle musk of books and lack of sleep makes you question the thought over and over again. You had heard the idea over the years – movies and fairy-tales always spoke of the one.

Your mother and father had thought of the concept dearly once. 

But then, as you glance at the rows and rows of books ahead of you, you remember reading it in a statistics book once. 

_Less than 5% of the world’s population ever find their soulmate._

It echoes in your head for a good while, making you sorrowful like a child that had lost its favorite toy. However, you are quick to sigh it out before going back to studying. 

You steel yourself and develop of routine of sorts – _pop_ , ignore Barnes, take a pill, and leave the room. 

It becomes your go-to for the rest of college. 

* * *

Bucky Barnes, as you end up learning his name during graduation, isn’t someone that you consider a friend after college is over and done with. He sits at the edge of meetings with Natasha, of saying hello to him and his pretty date, and being nice enough to introduce yourself – to be an actual being a decent person to the man. **  
**

But, then that’s when you hear it: _Pop!_

It’s that insufferable static and the pain it brings that causes you to pause and turn heel. It’s that horrible shift of emotions and other shit in the center of your core that makes you stop, as you end up spending the rest of the night with either Sam or Steve. 

It’s like that for years, until one night…as the clock strikes twelve on New Year’s when Sam, in that danky little bar on the South-side that you all like to hangout in during the weekends, can’t help but comment. 

“ _Hey,_ ” Sam remarks while pointing his drink subtly to the other side of the bar,"I think you caught someone’s attention tonight.” 

You feel the _pop!pop!_ before even knowing who is looking in your direction. You frown and take a look to see blue eyes glancing your way before they quickly slip over the room, like it might seem he was intending to do that the entire time. 

Both you and Sam know better though.

You take a sip of your drink and go back to looking at the man at your side. Sam raises his eyebrows at you in the most exaggerated way, as you just end up shaking your head.

None of your friends really understood why you didn’t like Bucky, but they had been thinking that they could change it with the new decade just around the corner.

* * *

The ball drops and you’re standing on the side, watching people yelling and kissing each other as another year comes around. It almost makes you seem like Lt. Dan from _Forrest Gump_ the way you are nursing your drink in the back while watching 2020 flash on the screen. **  
**

However, you don’t feel any of Gary Sinise’s bitterness, just the warmth of your drink and the sweetness that comes with your friends being happy as Natasha and Clint trade kisses and Steve and Sam start singing.

All the happiness, food, and drink makes you so full that you almost don’t feel it, but it’s subtly there – that _pop_ in the back of your mind. However, your current state of drunkenness causes your guard to fall just a bit because you don’t notice among the swaying bodies that dark-haired man is coming you way until he is right next to you. 

Dark button-up shirt, jeans, and a gray hoodie against the red-brick backdrop of the bar. You realize that this is the first time you had really looked at Bucky since that frat party, since seeing him shirtless back in college. 

The baby fat had disappeared and his hair was longer than before. He lets out a sigh, but you know that he isn’t that easily defeated. Though he is rose-cheeked, either from the cold or all the drinking you really didn’t know, but it made his blue eyes stand out more as he gave you a lopsided smile. 

You wonder how drunk he really is, as he leans on to the brink. 

“Hi,” he states breathlessly. His eyes meet yours and you swear the middle of your head starts to ache. You get goosebumps running up and down your spine. You frown and rub your forehead in irritation. His face soon mirrors yours, but instead he looks more melancholic than anything. 

“‘M’sorry, doll,” he manages to state. You don’t acknowledge him, “I’m sorry it hurts all the time.”

You don’t say anything, just take another sip of your drink and stare at the space above his head as the pain and fullness of everything makes you uncomfortably numb. You won’t accept that Bucky Barnes might feel something in the same way you do – that he hurts just like you do.

Because at the end of the night, he smiles and leaves with someone else that isn’t you and that’s all you need to keep moving forward. 

* * *

It isn’t like you don’t go on dates and try to make it work with someone else. There is a date peppered here and there, an almost proposal and that lost weekend with that you had with a former boss, after you had left the place where they worked. It’s not like you don’t try. **  
**

It always ends with the small detail that you still struggle with after all these years. The one that Natasha makes painfully obvious after a failed double date with one of your friends from work.

“They didn’t have it,” she pauses and looks at you with a light smile. You look up from your lunch.

“Didn’t have what?” you ask more cautiously than before. Natasha looks at you liked she knew something you didn’t, which could be accurate. You had never told anyone of the pain the back of your head. You weren’t sure if you could say the same for Barnes. 

_“Killer blue eyes_ ,” Natasha laughs at her own joke. You just keep staring at her before going back to eating.

It wasn’t like you could say anything could counter her point. In a way she was telling the truth. 

* * *

The limited interaction that you had with Bucky gave you enough reason to think that whatever you felt, he did too it some way. It hurt, but you weren’t going to run into his arms in some heartfelt declaration of your everlasting love. It wasn’t your style and from what you have heard from Sam, he was in a very disastrous relationship with a former beau. 

Winter turns to spring, as work leaves no time to do anything. It’s in late March when you finally have a weekend for yourself, as you set yourself up in a coffee shop near work – a nice drink and something soothing to make you forget the tiresome work week. 

The first hour is fine, until you feel it – that all too familiar irritation that comes before the _pop._

On pure instinct, you look up to see where the hell Barnes could be and just what exact escape plan you can come up with to leave the coffee shop. However, you were already too late in that aspect as well–-

“Hi,” there’s that same breathless voice again, as you look up to see familiar blue eyes. You swallow as the drumming gets stronger and you just want to leave, but Bucky Barnes is looking at you like he wants to say something. 

“Hi,” you manage to mumble out, as he gives you a relieved smile. You move about in your seat for a moment, as he moves a hand over his hair. You just notice he had gotten a haircut since the New Year's. 

“I just hadn’t seen you in awhile. And you were here, so I thought–” he stops halfway as you grimace, “Maybe I should go.” 

You aren’t sure why, but for the first time since you’ve had this aliment, your heart squeezes and aches at the thought of him leaving. Your pain momentarily blinds you to everything else, as your mouth opens and leaves the careful rationality that you have placed in front of you. 

“No, it’s fine,” you breathe out at the sight of his cautious stare, “It’ll pass.” 

Barnes lets out a breathe that he has been holding before asking if he can sit down and though the rest of the day is a hazy blur, you think it might’ve ended all right if your “soulmate” finally took notice of you. 

* * *

You remember reading once: _Those who consider themselves soulmates often experience shortness of breath, throbbing headaches, back and chest pain, and even nausea to the point of fainting. However, one partner will always have experience in one and not the others. Researchers have referred to as the head vs. heart syndrome._

You knew which one you suffered from. 

“Hi,” the back of your head throbs for a good second before the voice gulps in a gasp of air, “Were you waiting long?” 

“No, I just ordered and sat down,” you state without sparing him a single glance from the book that you were currently reading. You weren’t sure how exactly you had gotten in this strange situation of meeting with Bucky Barnes every other weekend at this coffee shop, but when you were there he usually was as well. 

However, that didn’t mean you were going to give him your full attention. 

“Good,” he sighs out before giving you a brief smile, “I’ll go get something too.” 

He takes another gulp of air before leaving your table. You can’t help but wonder for a brief moment, forgetting the family drama of your book, if Bucky suffered from chest pains and shortness of breath when he was around you. 

You wondered if he was the heart and you were the head in this situation, as laughable as it was. 

* * *

“So, what do you do for a living?” 

“Bucky, I am sure you know what I do for a living.” 

“No, I hardly know anything about you.”

* * *

It’s an easy thing to step into and an even easier thing to step out of. For a couple of hours every other weekend, you hang out with your potential, so called soulmate. You read and he is on the computer with warm drinks on the side. It’s somewhere between compassion and stubbornness, but it is to keep you safe above all else. **  
**

But then you see Bucky walking around and chatting with other women on the way to the coffee shop. Each of them laugh and smile at him, like he’s the sun and you feel a silent fury bubble within you.

 _Less than 5% of the world’s population ever find their soulmate_. 

You take a deep breathe and end walking the other direction numerous times, as the weeks without seeing him pile on. However, that doesn’t matter because you have lived without your so-called soulmate for this long, and you can do so for even longer.

* * *

_Should a soulmate ever consider rejecting their “other half…”_

“You know, Bucky has been asking about you.” 

“Please, don’t talk about **certain people** when I have a splitting headache, Sammy.” 

“Just sayin’”

“Just saying, my ass.” 

_..their symptoms will begin to worsen._

* * *

However, there is only so much pussy-footing around that you can do, between work and the headaches, before you have to see Bucky Barnes again. The problem is that instead of all your close friends being close to the bar, like they had promised, it was just Bucky by himself. A single light on him in the dark room as he sipped his beer. 

For a brief moment, you wonder if you could actually experience shortness of breath due to the surprise that he was actually alone since Steve was late and Natasha and Clint were in the corner talking to themselves. You weren’t sure where Sam was. He sat there and none dares approach him, his usual smile was replaced by a sulk. 

It almost made you want to check what was going on with him, but the bubbly-like feeling bursting in the back of your head makes you hesitant as well. Bucky Barnes’s mere existence put you on the defensive, but the lingering emptiness and the idea that you **might be missing him** makes you want to walk over to his side. 

You stand there until the feeling settles itself in your stomach like a rock. You're stuck like glue to the entrance, until you hear it –

“James, is that you, honeybunny?” 

The bile starts to run upwards and you end up running towards the nearest bathroom. You heave everything you have and end up leaving the bar in cold sweats and pounding headache. If you end up not seeing Bucky or your friends for the rest of the week, well it doesn’t matter above your health. 

_The rejection of said “soulmate” leads the occurrence of more and even worse symptoms. Sometimes for both recipients._

* * *

“Hey Buck, you okay in there?” 

“Yeah, must be some stomach bug I caught at work is all.”

* * *

“Hey, have you seen her recently?” **  
**

“Nah,” Sam shakes his head at Steve’s question, “Says she’s been sick for awhile now.”

Bucky frowns, but doesn’t say anything as he feels a pain in his chest. They have been more frequent that longer he had gone without seeing her, but what could he do when his soulmate was avoiding him. He didn’t know where to start making up for everything that he might’ve done.

* * *

The final time that you see Bucky from afar is when he is standing at the end of your apartment building’s hallway. He’s standing there, like you had at the bar, with his hands in his pockets and a glare that you had never seen being thrown in your direction. To be honest, Bucky never really looked at you though. You were unsure even now if he was really standing there since you were all messed up with the symptoms you had been feeling for days now. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he glowers at you, as you try to ignore the feverish glee that runs up and down your spine at him finally talking to you, “Now you’ve gotta us both like this, doll.” 

You let out a cough, but you can’t answer him as blue eyes watch you like a hawk. You want to say so many things, deny the fact and the crazy notion that this is something that the both of you have, but looking at Bucky – really looking at Bucky with his pale face and and greasy hair…and you can tell. 

You can tell that this separation makes him feel just as bad as you are feeling right now, but he’ll never understand that added weight that drags your heart down. 

“You don’t want me, Bucky,” you manages to cough out as your heart squeezes over the next words that leave your mouth, “Soulmates aren’t real.” 

Bucky looks at you like you hit him in the gut. You lean into the front door of your apartment, as your insides tear each other apart over such a declaration, as you can’t help but wonder why denial hurts so much. 

“How can you say that?” 

Bucky must be rushing over to you, but you don’t see it through the blurriness that is covering your eyes now. Everything is fading, as your stomach tightens. 

“Cause it’s always been the truth,” you murmur deliriously, “Been like that since I’ve known you.” 

You feel a fire burning your cold cheeks, as something grabs them, but you are too far gone into the darkness to know what it is. 

* * *

“Nat, what do you mean Bucky is taking care of her?”

“Exactly as I said,” Natasha answers back. Steve looks at her confused as to how the two people in their friends’ circle that interacted the least where now in the same hospital healing over their colds, “Like he should’ve already been doing."

Steve is even more confused than before, as Natasha just smiles to herself – like she knows a secret that nobody else does.

* * *

_However, there is an oddity that is seen in less than 1% of those who consider themselves to be “soulmates”._

“Mr. Barnes, if you would go back to your room. You need to recover as well.”

You don’t know how long it had been between you blacking out in the hallway and being in the hospital, but the nurse’s voice is clear with each passing day, as she states the same thing over and over again – reprimanding Bucky over being in your room when he should be in his. Even when she doesn’t, the familiar _pop pop_ feeling bubbles in the back of you head, though softer than before. 

Though this time, you don’t meet with annoyance, but rather Bucky’s soft voice going on about whatever is going through his head that time of the day – from his work at the counseling office (where he helps young women and their children) to what your friends have been up to, but it always ends the same way. 

“Doll, I hope you get better soon,” his voice cracks in the middle as your chest collapses on itself, “You just gotta.” 

You wonder if any other woman had heard him with such longing and desperation in his voice. If he waited on them day and night, like he did with you from time to time or until the nurse caught him again. 

You wonder and dream of how it would be like to be with Bucky, to stop denying yourself such a basic need for yourself. You breathe out soundly for the first time in a very long time because regardless of who Bucky had been once and who he had been with, you were starting to think that you would like to get to know Bucky as he was now. 

* * *

It’s a month after your hospitalization and two weeks after Bucky’s release that he feels it. The familiar breathless feeling that he has always gotten around you takes the air from his lungs, as he feels a hand running through his hair. He realizes that he must have fallen asleep on top of the hospital bed after coming back from lunch. 

His heart putters and stops at the sound of a groggy voice: “Good morning, Bucky.” 

Bucky Barnes turns his head in your direction to see that you are looking directly at him for once. A soft smile curls your lips as the sun shines through the widow behind you. He wants to cry and reach out to you, but instead he watches as you rub the back of your head for a moment. 

“Does it still hurt?” his voice stills the joy he had been feeling, stopping him from crossing the bridge and hugging you with all his might. He watches with bated breath as you shake your head. 

“Just a pinch,” you laugh. Bucky swears his heart stops in that moment, “But, I’ll get used to it.” 

It takes him a moment or two to process what you actual mean. Blue eyes widen as he lets out a watery laugh at the irony of it all, of finally finding the place where he is supposed to be after a museum gallery of lovers, though he knows he’ll have to fight tooth and nail for you to truly take him seriously. 

He’s willing to do that and so much more, so that you can truly understand that you are soulmates – that you are going to be the one he’s always going to choose at the end of the day, every day for the rest of his life. 

“That’s good to hear, doll.” 

_The initial rejection makes the “soulmates” bond even stronger than most._


End file.
